By Jerry Briggs
Special for The JB Replay
The UTSA Roadrunners are rolling with the good news and the bad leading into Tuesday night’s baseball game on the road against the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Islanders.
The good news is that the Roadrunners have been listed No. 5 in the nation in the first installment of the NCAA’s Ratings Percentage Index.
They’re also ranked 25th by D1 Baseball, a prominent source of national news in college baseball.
The bad news is that they will have to play the rest of the way without injured pitcher Rob Orloski.
“He’s out for the season,” UTSA coach Pat Hallmark said Monday on a zoom call with reporters. “Surgery.”
Orloski hurt his right (throwing) arm on Feb. 13, on opening night, against South Dakota State.
The team’s top pitcher coming into the season threw 23 pitches in the top of the first inning before exiting in pain.
He hasn’t pitched since.
“Rob’s known this,” Hallmark said. “We’ve known this. I mean, if you saw the injury, you could tell it wasn’t good. So, in terms of today, I think Rob’s OK.
“It was hard. Everybody was empathetic. But Rob is strong. He’s young. He’s resilient. He’s going to be back. So, everybody’s pulling for him.”
Previously, Hallmark has described it as a shoulder injury, but the nature of it was not discussed on the media call.
Even without Orloski, the team has excelled at just about every turn, putting together a 10-1 start.
In games played at Daikin Park last weekend, UTSA defeated Ohio State, Coastal Carolina and Baylor.
UTSA started the season with seven straight wins at home, including three in a row over the Dallas Baptist Patriots.
The Roadrunners’ only loss came last Tuesday when they fell 7-2 at Texas State in San Marcos.
“My thoughts on the week were, I thought we played well, even the game we lost,” Hallmark said. “I don’t think we played poorly. I don’t know that we played well.
“But we didn’t play poorly, so there was something to be learned from the loss, and then we went over to Houston and did well. Really happy for the players.”
The Roadrunners learned of the D1 ranking on Monday following their sweep of three games in the BRUCE BOLT College Classic.
The NCAA’s RPI report, believed to be the highest they’ve had in program history, emerged on Tuesday.
The coach said the players deserve the positive publicity and attention “and just the overall positive nature of things right now.”
“As a coach, trying to temper that and get us ready for Corpus,” Hallmark said. “A little worried about that game because Corpus can really swing it. So, that’s where we’re at right now.”
UTSA will play four games on the road this week, at A&M-Corpus Christi on Tuesday and at New Mexico State in three games starting Friday.
The coach said he’s pleased with the team overall, noting that the pitching walked only eight batters in Houston, including four on Friday and two each on Saturday and Sunday.
“We can hit,” he said. “We’re not always going to hit … I feel like every time we don’t score 10 runs (a reporter for UTSA student newspaper) is disappointed.
“It’s not that easy to score 10 runs. We make it look easy sometimes. But we mostly hit well, too. You’re not always going to put up 10 runs, but we were able to do that some this weekend, and we won the one game that we didn’t as well.”
Hallmark said the team’s success is a reflection of the team’s mindset.
“They’re very determined,” he said. “They’re willing to do whatever’s asked of them. It’s a very unselfish group up to this point. So, I can’t say enough about those guys.”
Records
UTSA 10-1
Texas A&M Corpus-Christi 8-4
Coming up
UTSA at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, 6:30 p.m.
Notable
The Islanders have played well recently, beating Pittsburgh, Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern twice before losing to Texas Southern 16-4 on Sunday.
